Ola Källenius used an awards night in Berlin to redraw the SL range.
Beside the AMG cars and the Maybach SL 680, the facelifted roadster gains a third line wearing the plain Mercedes-Benz badge, a car the chief executive summed up as effortless performance, superior comfort and a unique driving experience.
He posed with a camouflaged prototype at the Golden Steering Wheel awards, so the announcement arrived with sheetmetal attached.
The updated SL returns in 2027 as a 2028 model, and the new line puts the three-pointed star, rather than a sub-brand, at the front of the program.
A face built around the star
Under the wrap, the prototype’s nose gives the design brief away. The grille grows larger and carries the star as its dominant element, the daytime running lights pick up a star motif of their own, and the front bumper sits cleaner than the current car’s intake-heavy face.
That face splits the Benz car from its siblings before any badge enters the discussion.
AMG’s Panamericana grille is vertical slats and intent, all aggression. The Maybach grille stands finer and more upright, lit in chrome, with a standing star riding on the hood. The canvas top stays on the car. The facelift keeps the triple-layer fabric roof that replaced the folding hardtop when this generation arrived, and the camouflaged prototype shows the same long hood and short deck that have defined the SL shape for decades.
Three faces on one roadster
Splitting one roadster three ways is new ground for the SL name. AMG developed this generation from a clean sheet, and since the 2022 launch every car has worn either the AMG grille or Maybach’s two-tone couture treatment, with nothing in between.
A Mercedes-Benz variant restores the arrangement older SL generations took for granted.
The standard car carried the star and the road, and the AMG versions sat above it as the loud minority, an order the nameplate followed from the 1950s until this generation flipped it.
US pricing shows the gap the new line walks into. The AMG SL 43 starts at $114,900 and the Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series sits at $225,900 for 2027, with two AMG V8 models and the 805 hp hybrid flagship stacked between them.
Where the third line sits
Källenius framed the brief in comfort terms, and interview reports point to less aggressive bumper work on the production car.
This is the SL aimed at the coastal road at legal speeds, roof down, pace held in reserve for the stretches that ask for it.
Reports around the interview credit the Maybach SL’s reception with pushing this repositioning. The softer, richer car found its audience fast at the top of the range, and a Benz line prices that same taste far below the Maybach’s couture tag.
Beyond the badge and the brief, nothing on the variant is final. Mercedes has published no engine, no output figure and no price for it, and the full reveal of the facelifted range is still ahead of us.
Power stays an AMG story
What sits under the Benz car’s hood stayed open in the interview, and it stays open here.
The four-cylinder AMG SL 43 is expected to leave the range at the facelift, which moves the entry point toward six cylinders by default.
One candidate keeps surfacing in the coverage: the 3.0-liter inline-six from the CLE 53, rated at 443 hp. File it as speculation. Mercedes has confirmed no engine for the new line, and the six could reach the SL in a different state of tune or not at all.
The confirmed top of the range stays extreme.
The AMG SL 63 S E PERFORMANCE pairs a handcrafted 4.0-liter V8 biturbo with a rear-axle electric motor for 805 hp and 1,047 lb-ft combined, runs 0 to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds, and starts at $207,900.
Below the hybrid sit the volume V8s: 577 hp in the AMG SL 63, 469 hp in the SL 55, both drawn from the M177 4.0-liter V8. Reports tied to the interview also expect a revised M177 Evo with a flat-plane crank for the V8 cars, an expectation rather than a published specification.
The cabin keeps its grand touring brief
The current cabin already splits the difference the new line leans into.
Two-plus-two seating pairs deep sport seats with a portrait touchscreen that tilts to cut glare with the roof down, and MANUFAKTUR Nappa leather covers the seats, the wheel and the floor mats.
The Maybach shows where the trim path ends when money steps aside. It drops the rear bench for a strict two-seat layout in crystal white Nappa, then prints the Maybach pattern into the black fabric of its soft top.
Comfort hardware is already in place across the range.
Rear-axle steering tightens low-speed turns and settles the car at speed, active roll control works against lean, and the Burmester systems climb to a 1,220-watt 3D setup with 17 speakers.
The star takes the base back
Strip the sub-badges away and the move is a homecoming. The SL spent most of its seven decades as a Mercedes-Benz with sporting options on the menu, and only this generation handed the entire program to AMG.
A calmer car at the base gives the range its balance back. AMG keeps the stopwatch, Maybach keeps the couture, and the star takes the open road in between, which is where most SL history was written. The camouflage comes off in 2027, once for the facelift and once for the new line it carries.
Until then, a star-led grille under Berlin lights is the clearest statement Mercedes has made about where its oldest sports car name goes next.
Källenius has confirmed a third SL line, a Mercedes-Benz variant beside the AMG cars and the Maybach SL 680, with the facelifted roadster returning in 2027 as a 2028 model.
See the current SL range at Mercedes-Benz
